"It's not the end of society... Just critical thinking."
Like a slingshot casting the first stone, PLANET GRIFFIN returns to orbit, keeping a vigilant eye on the self aggrandizing monster that is Pop Culture. Speaking of unexpected monsters, tonight's beast was born only 24 short hours ago...
Various internet sites have been abuzz over the recent speech given by Steven Spielberg & George Lucas during the opening of a new media center at the University of Southern California ... What was to be considered a standard speech to the students, the two titans of the film industry gave their predictions on the 'massive implosion' of the business and it's relation to the blockbuster formula... Keep in mind, this is coming from the very two men who built the business model.
"...The enormous amount of available content has pushed movie studios to be more conservative, banking on the power of event films to break through the white noise of a crowded marketplace. You're at the point right now where a studio would rather invest $250 million in one film for a real shot at the brass ring than make a whole bunch of really interesting, deeply personal — and even maybe historical — projects that may get lost in the shuffle..." stated Spielberg to the standing room only crowd.
"There's going to be an implosion where three or four or maybe even half a dozen of these mega-budgeted movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that's going to change the paradigm again."
The subject of cable television becoming internet TV, movies turning into overpriced events, and the number of cinemas that will die off as a likely result peppered the conversation, until George Lucas spoke up.
"It's a mess. It's total chaos," Lucas said. "But out of that chaos will come some really amazing things. And right now there are amazing opportunities for young people coming into the industry to say, ‘Hey, I think I'm going to do this and there's nobody to stop me.'" Lucas was quick to encourage the students to take advantage of the new opportunities that the current disruption provides.
Now, the arguments to their statements have been waged all day, from 'the laughable hypocrisy' to outright 'bullshit'... So rather than argue either side, PLANET GRIFFIN will speak on the one thing that no other blogsite has spoken on throughout all of this, which is the point of this post... The point to all of this isn't just the current malaise of the blockbuster formula or whether theaters will become event centers or whether Internet TV is the next big thing...
It's content.
Now that the PLANET has your attention, we can explain...
It's no secret that the blockbuster model has devolved. Before the advent of interactive technologies such as videogames, Studios could experiment with genre and storytelling to variable degrees of success. Using said successes of the last 40 years as a gauge, it's no wonder we as a people continuously see the same familiar remakes and regurgitations, only edited down to move faster and packed with enough CGI to hold you enthralled until the house lights reappear... Knowing that it's far easier to draw people to a moving object rather than an inanimate one; the industry seems willing to lose core content in favor of big returns...
It's also no secret that Spielberg and Lucas have created some of the biggest blockbusters in the history of film and television, but they have also created blockbusters with more story content and heart than most. You can't blame films like RAIDERS, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, or STAR WARS and AMERICAN GRAFFITTI to the downfall of society... By extracting the content, you easily get what's Now Playing...
Like a raging Godzilla, mercilessly crushing Tokyo beneath it's heel, the blockbuster theorum has taken a monstrous life of it's own. Thinking thoughts such as 'hypocritical' or 'bullshit' are more than entitled, but it could also be taken completely different... Especially once you take the time to realise that Tokyo can also be substituted for content itself... But fear not... Tokyo always rebuilds.
